of Italy. Another timid commander, General Doppet, a former dentist
who allegedly could not stand the sight of blood, came and went within
three weeks. Finally, on 17 November, Napoleon got a commander after
his own heart in the shape of General Dugommier. Behind this
appointment lay a complex story of politicking in Paris. Saliceti found a
powerful new ally there in Lazare Carnot, who was the member of the
Committee of Public Safety entrusted with the organization and
deployment of France's fourteen armies. Carnot saw the merit of
Napoleon's scheme and overruled the other, inferior, plans that had been
put to him. There was no more dithering. 'There is only one possible
plan - Bonaparte's,' Dugommier wrote to the Ministry of War.
For all that, Dugommier ordered one final attack across a broad front
before bowing to the inevitable. But after a frenzied combat - when the
English sortied and bloody hand-to-hand fighting took place, yielding
hundreds of casualties on both sides and the expenditure of soo,ooo
cartridges - he signed the order endorsing Napoleon's scheme.
Eguillette point was dominated by the fort called Mulgrave, which the
French nicknamed 'Little Gibraltar'. Having amassed a powerfuhrtillery
park and demonstrated the accuracy of his gunners by shelling British
ships - 'artillery persistently served with red-hot cannonballs is terrible
against a fleet,' he wrote later- Napoleon began on I I December to bring
up his guns to very close range. He made good use of the rolling, hilly
terrain to construct new batteries and then commenced a 48-hour
artillery duel with the twenty guns and four mortars inside the fort. On
16 December, during this 'softening up' process, he narrowly escaped
death when he was knocked off his feet by the wind from a passing
cannonball.
It was at Toulon that Napoleon met the first of his faithful followers.
Androche Junot was then a young sergeant from Burgundy. When
Napoleon asked for a volunteer soldier with good handwriting, Junot
stepped forward. While Napoleon was dictating, already impressed with
the man's calligraphy and spirit, a cannonball from a British warship fell
nearby and sprayed Junot's writing pape r with sand. 'Good,' said Junot.
'We won't need to blot this page.' This was exactly the sort of humour
Napoleon appreciated, and he immediately appointed Junot to his
personal staff.
By I7 December Napoleon judged that he had effectively silenced the
fusillade from the fort and called on Dugommier to deliver the final
attack. Heavy rainfall and low clouds that evening almost led the general
to call it off, since the weather would affect the accuracy of musketry by
troops whom he knew not to be top flight, but this raised suspicions in
marcin
(Marcin)
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